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Sunday, February 5, 2017

Lots of Seafood this Week

I neglected to renew my domain name. Ooops! It's gone and I doubt I will play $60 to get it back from the company who is holding it hostage. For the time being you can find my recipe archive at www.homewithmandy.blogspot.com and I may be doing a re-branding later this year. We will see what happens.

Let's get back into the swing of regular blog posts shall we? This was our menu from last week and I mostly appreciated how quickly everything came together each night. There are times when I relish the long list of ingredients I chop and tend to. This was not that week.

Italian Mussels: Mussels are one of our favorite meals to cook and eat on a weekend. I do my grocery shopping on the weekend and this is an item you really don't want sitting in your fridge, it is best to cook it the day you buy them. Mussels are also a fabulous dinner party food because I serve them family style in a big shallow bowl. I have changed up the recipe over the years to keep things interesting, but my standby is posted here. I now add 2-3 sausage links to the pot while I'm softening the vegetables. The way I do it is to squeeze 1/2 inch size balls of meat out of the casings right into the pot. I like how rustic it makes the finished dish in the end.

Gnocchi: While I love making my own gnocchi and stocking the freezer with those yummy pillows of goodness, I have absolutely nothing against the store bought gnocchi. I was just telling my dad how great the prepackaged gnocchi are and they can be found on the pasta aisle of our grocery store. This recipe came from a Martha Stewart post where she gives you the weekly grocery list and all the recipes. What I liked most about this recipe was that you make a lot of meat sauce and refrigerate three cups for use in the Beef and Rice Casserole on the menu for Thursday.

Honey Soy Salmon: There are several variations of this recipe out there - some using maple syrup instead of honey. I really love the sticky sweet and salty sauce that the Pioneer Woman creates on her version of the recipe. I always cook my salmon in the oven, it is just the most simple way to me. I even cook it on a piece of tin foil so that I can scoop up the fish leaving the skin on the foil when it is done cooking - then I toss the foil in the trash and cleanup is done. Since the sauce is so flavorful, I sprinkle the salmon with salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes based on how thick your cut of fish is. On the stovetop I melt the butter, add honey, soy, lime and stir while it bubbles and makes a nice sticky sauce. I place the fish on top of rice and spoon the sauce over the top, finishing with fresh cilantro. This is so good and easy.

Chicken Parmesan Bake: While I was on the Pioneer Woman site I stumbled upon this recipe twist for Chicken Parmesan. I thought it sounded like a super easy version of a dish my whole family would enjoy. THEN I realized it was published by a guest author, Jessica Merchant, from How Sweet It Is. Jessica and I met for drinks a few years ago when she was in Austin attending a food blog conference. She is so nice, hysterical and cooking is just one of her many talents. Back to the recipe... I thought the breading and frying of the chicken was a little too time consuming for a week night. I may not have felt that way during a week where I had a lot of energy and my kids were not so grumpy. This week was not that week. It was a tasty dinner, and my kids and hubby liked it a lot - enough that I would put it on my menu again in a month or two.

Beef and Rice Casserole: This recipe is part two of Martha Stewart's meal plan I referenced above in the Gnocchi paragraph. The leftover meat sauce is added to a half cup of rice, then topped with thinly sliced zucchini and a parmesan and panko topping - all baked in the oven for a yummy one dish supper.

Peel and Eat Shrimp: One of Jim's favorite dinners, and a cinch to throw together! I learned that you can put frozen shrimp on a sheet pan and top with "stuff" and bake at 350 for 20ish minutes - super easy-peasy. I topped our shrimp with salt, pepper, Worcestershire and tobasco sauce. Before I put in the oven I added 1/2 stick of butter sprinkled over the top. When the shrimp came out of the oven I squeezed half a lemon over and poured everything in a bowl - juices and all. Be sure to have some crusty bread nearby, you will want to soak up all that delicious juice.